The present invention generally relates to carvings, and more particularly to an intricately detailed carving product and process of making the same that incorporates various innovative and realistic aspects of plants, stems, and leaves, such as a fruit-stem/vegetable-stem interface, in order to create a highly lifelike carving.
In recent years, there has been an increasing demand for fine architectural elements, such as carvings and moldings, to accent the interior of homes, offices, and other buildings. Such architectural elements may be found in and include arches, keys, crowns, cabinet parts, capitals, columns, corbels, mantels, moldings, onlays, pulls, and various other panels and products. These architectural elements often incorporate elegant floral, grape, leaf, acanthus, cherubs, medallions, as well as other architectural designs and vast other artistic designs. The architectural elements may be made of various types of materials, such as woods including maple, red oak, cherry, white oak, mahogany, black walnut, and alder woods, to name a few. Other materials may include fiberboard, plastic, and composites, and are especially useful when the final product need not have a wood grain, such as if the product will be painted instead of being stained.
These architectural elements may be used on doors, cabinets, houses, and other structures as desired. They provide ornamental designs and decorative appearances, thus enhancing the aesthetic appeal of the area in which such ornamental architectural elements are found, be it a house, a kitchen, a bedroom, or other areas. Traditionally these architectural elements have been hand-carved using chisels, gouges, mallets, and the like. In recent years, however, techniques have been developed to automate the process, such as by utilizing computer numerical control (CNC) machinery with attendant operator-inputted programming to guide the same.
One of the most popular decorative designs used in architectural elements is the use of vegetables or fruits, including grapes, berries, apples, oranges, etc., and vines and/or leaves to accompany the vegetables and/or fruits to create real-life settings. However, as illustrated in FIG. 1, a typical prior art grape and stem onlay carving product 10, which includes a bunch of individual fruits 12, such as grapes, tends to look more like a bunch of small golf balls than lifelike grapes. The prior art product of FIG. 1 includes two large stems 14 that intersect with a top end 16 of a plurality of the spherical fruits 12. These stems 14 appear discontinuous to the bunch of grapes, and do not appear to resemble lifelike stems. In addition, there are no other details in the prior art product that incorporate lifelike aspects of grapes. Further, there is apparently no current process or product that incorporates lifelike aspects of fruits, other than those mentioned above. Given these limitations, the products of the prior art appear only marginally realistic. The apparent failure to produce an extraordinarily lifelike fruit carving product may also cause would-be customers to defer to other types of decorative architectural elements.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for a product and method which can precisely simulate the lifelike aspects of fruits, vegetables, and other plants and objects. Further, there is a need in the art for a carving method that creates distinctly lifelike variations in fruit, vegetables, vines, stems, plants, and other realistic aspects of objects. In particular, there is a need in the art for a lifelike carving product and method that includes a realistic fruit-stem/vegetable-stem interface. Furthermore, there is a need in the art for a carving product and method that simulates the lifelike interrelationship of fruits/vegetables/objects, stems, and leaves.